This is a blog to document summaries/abstracts of various essays on cinema, cultural studies and research methodology. These abstracts are written by students pursuing their MPhil in Cinema Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes Toward an Investigation) Part II

In the second part of
his essay “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”, Louis Althusser talks
about the idea of what ‘Ideology’ actually stands for. Looking at the historical evolution of the
term, he narrates how the term ‘Ideology’ first coined by Cabanis, Destutt de Tracy and their friends who ‘assigned to it
as an object the theory of ideas’ was given a completely different meaning by
Marx fifty years later. According to Marx, ideology is the system of ideas and
representations which dominate the mind of man or a social group.

Althusser, however,
formulates different theses on Ideology based on the project of a theory of
ideology in general and a theory of particular ideologies. Both these premises involve
class positions at some point in time. He also finally explains how the theory
of ideologies is not possible as it always depends on history of social
formations, whose determination is situated outside ideologies alone. He thus
proposes the project of a theory of ideology in general which is based on the
idea that “Ideology has no history”.

The thesis that
“Ideology has no history” is inspired by Marx’s definition of ideology in The German Ideology as a pure illusion,
a pure dream, i.e as nothingness. Here Althusser draws comparison as to how the
same terms he adopts from The German
Ideology (Ideology has no history) is starkly different in meaning to his
definition. He says that even though he theorises that Ideology has no history,
he thinks that ideologies have a history of their own which is ascertained in
the last instance by the class struggle. On the other hand, he also proposes
that ideology in general has a history which is external to it, thus ‘it is
endowed with a structure and a functioning such as to make it a non-historical
reality i.e. an omni historical reality”. Relating the idea of ideology as an
imaginary construct to Freud’s proposition that unconscious is eternal; Althusser
surmises that ideology is eternal. He thus justifies in proposing the theory of
ideology in general as Freud also presented a theory of the unconscious in
general.

In his discourse on the
structure and function of ideology, he presents two contradictory theses:

Thesis
I: Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real
conditions of existence.

According
to him, so many of the ‘world outlooks’ are all imaginary and they are only
required to be interpreted so that we are able to discover the reality of the
world. Among the various interpretations, the most popular one is the mechanistic and the hermeneutic types which is based on the fact that ‘men represent
their real conditions of existence to themselves in an imaginary form’. In
answering why men needed this imaginary transposition he proposes two
solutions. First, priests and despots with their beautiful lies dominated and
exploited other people on a falsified representation of the world. Second, the material
alienation which reigns in the conditions of existence of men themselves.

Thesis
II: Ideology has a material existence.

By
this he does not mean to compare the existence of ideology to the existence of
a physical object but referring to his discussion of the ideological state
apparatuses and their practices, he means to say that an ideology always exists
in an apparatus, and its practice or practices. This existence is material. Thus
according to him, the ‘ideas’ of a human subject exists in his actions.

Althusser concludes his
essay by ‘interpellating individuals as subjects’. In discussing this he says
that there is no ideology except by the subject and for the subjects. The
category of the subject is a primary obviousness and at work in this reaction
is the ideological recognition function. The subjects thus are habituated to
constantly practice the rituals of ideological recognition which establishes
that we are indeed concrete, individual, distinguishable and irreplaceable
subjects.